Palestinian girl (15) published in Phili Inquirer

15-year-old Palestinian girl published in Philidelphia
Inquirer + other reports

1) It exists not for security but
for apartheid_Iltezam Morrar in the Philidelphia Inquirer 2)
ISMer and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein in the St. Louis
Dispatch 3) "They killed him in cold blood"_Report from
Jenin 4) Night raids in Al-Yamun_Report from
Jenin

On Monday, the International Court of Justice in the Hague
will begin hearings on the wall Israel is building around
Palestinian cities and villages. I live in one of them:
Budrus, a small village west of Ramallah. It is a very
simple life here. Old women and farmers tend their sheep;
children go to school, and people live together peacefully.
Our village has many olive trees, which are very important
for food and oil.

Americans should know that, from
our viewpoint, the wall is not a security wall. Security and
safety do not come from stealing land (Budrus lost about 80
percent of its village area in 1948, when Israel was formed,
and stands to shrink by another 20 percent if the wall goes
up). Security does not come from killing or harassing people
(there is hardly a family in Palestine without some member
who has been killed, hurt or imprisoned) or cutting trees
(which Israeli officials have started doing around my
village). So this is not a security wall. It is an apartheid
wall.

Palestine will be separated into little
pieces. Many people will be unable to go to work. Students
won't be able to travel to university. After all this, when
we are without land or olive trees, unable to work or study,
people will leave. That is what the Israeli occupation is
for. In 1953, for example, when Ariel Sharon led a military
operation resulting in 69 civilian deaths at Qibya, the next
village over from us, some people in Budrus were afraid and
left. Everything the Israeli government has done is to make
the people leave their land.

At the first
demonstration to stop the wall in Budrus, only three old
women participated with the men. I asked my father if the
demonstrations were just for men, and he said no, they were
for women as well. Some women and girls came to the next
demonstration but left when they didn't see many other
women. I told my father that we needed a demonstration only
for women, and we made one.

On the first day Israeli
officials came to cut the trees, I was at school. I said,
"We should go; the land is more important than our exams."
We marched to the fields, the boys and then the girls.
Soldiers threw tear gas into the middle of us. We carried
on; we were still holding our schoolbooks when we came to
the Israeli captain. He was very angry and shouted, "Stop
here. If you walk one more step, we will hit you." He pushed
me, so I stood beside him and shouted "Free, free
Palestine."

Because of the occupation, I cannot see
my country. I can't travel in my country. It is like a big
prison, and the wall will make it worse. If there were no
occupation, I could be free. For me, the day my country is
free will be my birthday. In the occupation, I have no
future.

I want to study to help my country. I want
to be a doctor, because here in Palestine, many people get
hurt and there are few hospitals or doctors and little
medicine. I want four children, but then, I want to be a
doctor and will work late nights, so perhaps two is
enough.

We don't hate Israelis because they are
Israelis. The only thing between us is what we see as their
theft of our land. If they gave back our land, nothing would
be between us. We need enough land that all the Palestinian
refugees who live outside could come and live here. Many
Palestinians live in other countries, in tents, with no
work.

Peaceful struggle is very important. It is the
only way in which we can become free and stop the wall, even
if we know the Israeli army does not want peace and will use
violence. I think: If I use violence, all the children in
Israel will feel in danger and they will use violence. So
this makes the two sides always live in violence. It is
important to show the world we are a peaceful people and all
we want is peace.

The hearings in the Hague are very
important even though we are not sure they will stop the
wall. It is very important that the international community
does something to say the wall should be stopped, even if it
doesn't succeed.

THE MIDDLE EAST KNOW RESPECT, KNOW PEACE - NO
RESPECT, NO PEACE By HEDY EPSTEIN 02/17/2004

Violence,
humiliation only aggravate the conflict between Israel and
the Palestinians.

In 1939, I left the village of
Kippenheim, Germany, on a Kindertransport - a small group of
children allowed to go to England - thus surviving the
Holocaust. In December, I went to Israel to honor the memory
of my parents, Ella and Hugo Wachenheimer, who did not
survive the war against the Jews. At a monument near
Jerusalem, I lit candles for my parents and for the other
80,000 Jews deported from France to the death camps.

It is
impossible to visit Israel these days without being aware of
the constant threat posed by terrorists. Suicide bombs kill
and maim innocent persons riding in buses or taking a meal
in a restaurant. We Jews who survived the Shoah know all too
well that the intentional targeting of civilians is illegal
and immoral. So I grieve the loss of life in Jerusalem from
the suicide bombs.

But I also grieve the loss of life in
Palestine, which occurs almost on a daily basis. So I went
to Palestine as a member of the International Solidarity
Movement to observe the difficult conditions of daily life
under military occupation. It would have been enough to
reach out and touch just one Palestinian and place my hand
on her shoulder and tell her that I was with her in her
pain. But I saw and did much more.

In Bethlehem, I saw a
Caterpillar bulldozer ripping up centuries-old olive trees
to clear a path for rolled razor wire and antitank trenches
dividing the town where Jesus was born.

In Qalqilia, I was
dwarfed by Israel's separation wall rising more than 25
feet. In President George W. Bush's phrase, it "snakes in
and out of the West Bank." It keeps farmers from their
fields and hems in 50,000 residents on all sides.

In
Masha, I joined a demonstration against this wall. I saw a
red sign warning ominously of "MORTAL DANGER" to any who
dare cross this fence. Then I saw Israeli soldiers aiming at
unarmed Israeli and international protesters. I saw blood
pouring out of Gil Na'amati, a young Israeli whose first
public act after completing his military service was to
protest against this wall. I saw shrapnel lodged in the leg
of Anne Farina, one of my traveling companions from St.
Louis. And I thought of Kent State and Jackson State, where
National Guardsmen opened fire in 1970 on protesters against
the Vietnam War. Near Der Beilut, I saw the Israeli police
turn a water cannon on our nonviolent protest. And I
remembered Birmingham, Ala., in 1963 and wondered why a
democratic society responds to peaceable assembly by trying
literally to drown out the voice of our protest.

At the
end of the journey I had a shocking experience. I knew that
what I had said and done was viewed by some as controversial
but surely not as threatening. So I did not imagine that the
Israeli security force that guards Ben-Gurion Airport would
abuse a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor, holding me for five
hours and performing a completely unnecessary strip search
of every part of my naked body.

The only shame these
security officials expressed was to turn their badges around
so that their names were invisible. The only conceivable
purpose for this gross violation of my bodily integrity was
to humiliate and terrify me.

Of course, I felt humiliated
by this outrage, but I refuse to be terrified by cowards who
hide their identity while engaging in such unnecessary
disrespect. It is a cruel illusion that brute force of this
sort provides security to Israel. Degrading me cannot
silence my small voice.

Similarly, humiliating
Palestinians cannot extinguish their hopes for a homeland.
Only ending this utterly unnecessary occupation will bring
peace to the region.

Hedy Epstein of St. Louis is a
Holocaust survivor, Holocaust educator and longtime civil
rights and peace activist. Her story is featured in the
Academy Award winning documentary, "Into the Arms of
Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport."

3) "They
killed him in cold blood" Jenin Andrew 16 Feb 04

I try to
count the bullet holes that riddle the side, bonnet and roof
of the car but lose count at 36. The distraction of the
blood, hair and brain matter that cover the passenger and
back seat proves too much. It strikes me at that moment that
it hardly matters, there were bullets enough to kill a man.
The car has been left at the side of the road, bloody, shot
up, every window gone and tyres flat. Now a harsh and
uncompromising memorial, with roses placed on the bonnet and
roof, a shaheed poster pasted on the passenger door.

"We have no clothes, no food, no water, nothing remains for
us" states Mohammed Hasan Mobada Ferihiat, 44 as he stands
in the shattered remains of his home. Two sides of the room
have been destroyed, the view over the village of Al Yamun
now unimpeded save for the scaffold that is keeping the roof
from crashing in on top of us. The remaining walls are
scarred with blast marks, shrapnel holes and deep fissures,
the floor sags ominously beneath our feet. Its is 10 hours
since Israeli soldiers detonated explosives in this room
shaking the house to its foundations and shattering the
windows in the neighbouring home; 10 hours since Mohammed's
son, Ashraf was taken handcuffed from his home to an
uncertain future within the Occupation detention
system.

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